Relationship-Based Competencies to Support Family Engagement: Webinar Series

This four-part webinar series focuses on the relationship-based competencies (RBCs)—knowledge, skills, and individual practices—staff need based on their roles. Discover how to use them as a guide to effectively engage and partner with families. Learn how to apply the RBCs in all areas of work with children and families and in professional development. This series will be useful for all early childhood professionals, including teachers, family services staff, and home visitors.

Relationship-Based Competencies to Support Family Engagement for All Early Childhood Professionals: An Overview

Relationship-Based Competencies to Support Family Engagement for All Early Childhood Professionals: An Overview

Brandi Black Thacker: We hope you're here to talk about the Relationship-Based Competencies to Support Family Engagement for All Early Childhood Professionals. And those of you that know the relationship-based competencies of yesteryear are going to be so excited. I'm just going to claim it, we're so excited about what we have in store for you today because when we say, "all professionals," I think we did really do, Cathy, have something for everybody here.

So, we're excited to have everybody who's here, and we're looking forward to hearing all of the good ideas that you have to contribute to some of the things we brought for you to consider today. And what we're going to do now is just talk a little bit about the logistics of our web series and then a few logistics about today in our technology and then some objectives. And so here we are today, September 6, the RBCs, which is our shorthand for Relationship-Based Competencies: An Overview. So, today, you're going to get all of the overarching bits, how the series is organized, how the documents are now set up so that you'll have all the things that you need to be ready for these brand new documents which I hope you guys will read well.

On September 20, we are actually going to be doing a specific focus on the RBCs for Teachers and Child Care Providers, and we'll talk a little more about each of these here in just a minute so you can see how they're connected to each other. On October 11, we'll be coming back with the RBCs for Family Service Professionals. And rounding out, our series on November 1, with RBCs for Home Visitors. If you didn't have your pencil ready or you didn't have your phone to take a screenshot of this, don't worry, we'll come back to this with these dates at the very end. So, if you're interested in coming back to visit with us, you can see those again before we leave each other. The four part series, this is one of four. We hope to see you again. And with that, I should stop with my talking for a little bit and introduce you guys to one of my most favorite people who I've really enjoyed learning from on this journey, and many others, that I'm honored to be with her today, and I'm so glad that you get to be with her too because she has been one of the thought leaders on these relationship-based competencies. And I'm excited that we get to learn from and with her today. So, let me let her introduce herself. The one and only Dr. Cathy Ayoub.

Cathy Ayoub: Thank you, Brandi. Hi, everybody. It's really good to be here. I am so excited that we finally have these ready to bring to you and to really talk about the relationship-based competencies. We've been working on these for a while. And some of you may have even helped us with them and thank you so much. And I'm just really excited as one of the principal investigators at the National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement, I think that we're just really so pleased and eager to hear what you have to say about them. So, Brandi, let's do it.

Brandi: Let's look. There's so much to talk about in such a little time, an hour just flies right on by. So, here's what we built. You know, before we got to be with you today, and we really like to watch what you're saying in chat and drive the conversation in the way that you're leading this. So, just know, this is what we built for you, and we'll hover where you take us. But we really want to talk to you about the revisions of the Relationship-Based Competencies. So, many of you have used these over the years and have integrated them into your systems and services and not only for family folks but how we believe at the National Center, we know you do too. It's everybody's business. So, we've been using these to integrate in a lot of different ways and we want to show these versions for you.

And we want to also talk about how they can be used in different kinds of early childhood professional settings. You guys always teach us things that we never predicted, what happens with these resources, so we're going to offer a few of those, not only that we've learned from you but also that we've hoped will sort of be inspired by this news that based on the way that they were written and proposed not only for programmatic level but also bigger systemic, like perhaps even state level work, that's my tea, in the end, we want to think about how to use these RBCs for, of course, professional development and at all those levels that you see on the screen, individual program, state/regional, territorial, tribal.

So, these are some big things ahead of us in the next, you know, like 50 minutes or so, but we're up for the task and we know you are too. So, here's one more poll for you. We want to check in and see who has history, who has history with RBCs. So, do you know them, love them, live them, have them memorized? If you do, click that first radio button. You have a general understanding of the RBCs but don't reference them regularly, that's your second choice. And then the third one, "I'm familiar with it, but I want to better absorb it." That's an option. And then what in the world is an RBC? And that's okay too, that's one of the many reasons that we're here together today, to fill each other in on the Relationship-Based Competencies. All right, this is good to see, a lot of you haven't seen them before, so we'll be sure to show you, we'll show them off in new way for those of who seeing them for the first time but at a refreshing way, I hope, for those of you that know of them and have used them before. Drum roll, please. Miss Nina, Let's end the poll and see what we came up with. So, 44.4 percent of you want to know what an RBC is. So, that's great to listen, we can really hover in the places of their historical context, their value. But also, while we think this all will be so exciting for you in this format, then looks like about 32% of you are familiar but you want to absorb more. So, that can totally be accomplishable today. And then others who, like about 17 percent have a general understanding, and about 6 who know it, love it, live it, have it memorized. So, hopefully, we'll have something for everybody today wherever you find yourself in that spectrum. And looking forward showing you what we have in here and your reaction. And what we're going to do now for everybody is just give a little bit of history really about where the relationship-based competencies came from.

And, Cathy, you know, I'm realizing in my excitement to be talking about the RBCs, I never even told you guys who in the world I am. So, let me do that real quick as we transition. My name is Brandi Black Thacker, and you did see my picture beside Cathy's. I have the honor to direct the Training, Technical Assistance and Collaboration effort inside the National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement, and I'd just say the Relationship-Based Competencies or the RBCs are one of my most favorite sets of our work. So, let's kick off with what they are and then we're going to talk a little bit about kind of how they work, what they look like now, and how you might consider using them in your very important role. But to do that, Cathy, let's start with you on sort of what they are and then we'll kind of build from there.

Cathy: Sounds good, Brandi, and jump in. The Relationship-Based Competencies are a set of -- Individual practices that essentially come together to make up a body of practice for folks who are working with families in early childhood settings. So, let me start with that really basic, so that these are really a set of practices that are really outlined and will help you in your role to understand what the activities of each of you as professional providers might do, what you might learn, what skills you might be involved in, and then really how you really might go about your practice in working with families, partnering with families, and joining them in a truly relational way. So, Brandi, you want to say more?

Brandi: Well, you know, I was just thinking about what we've heard, and we'll share examples like these throughout our time but, in terms of how programs have used these, specifically for those of you who are just coming to know them, we actually have heard of folks integrating the language from these into job descriptions for each of the roles on, you know, their team depending on, you know, the levels of whether it's program and/or a larger, more macro sort of set up. And I think that's one thing that we'll say here too that's as we get into some of these things, you'll notice that some of the language had been broadened so that all of us within the early childhood to feel can find ourselves within these relationship-based competencies. So, that's another exciting thing that we have for you to look at and to consider and to see where you fit based on how these were written, which was across paradigms, across like a code of ethics across the different things that we know that you guys are using out there so that it's really synthesized in one big place about how we really do walk beside families in a deep way through relationship and what that concretely looks like. So, with kind of that as our foundation, we wanted to kind of showcase for you guys what this new suite -- That's what I'm calling it, Cathy, the sweet suite.

Cathy: I like that.

Brandi: If you guys are familiar with RBCs, you know that we had a version that has existed since -- Gosh, Cathy, how long now? 2000... Oh, too many gray hairs ago.
Cathy: 2012.

Brandi: So, the core version of the Relationship-Based Competencies have been out since 2012, but there was a piece before that that had been established, I believe, back in 2001, where we had these indicators and -- So, what we have today here before you is, on the left-hand side, you see represented in green, what we're going to talk about today, which is like what we call our universal RBCs. Yes, Jamie, that's exactly the right -- That's what I had in mind. The RBCs, the overview, that's where we're at today, and the document that we have to support this conversation is really what we call the universal document, like what we all need together, no matter our role to walk beside families in a meaningful way. So, that's represented in the green box, and that's where we'll be hovering the most today. Then off to the side, this is exciting, we actually broke down their roles, the concrete ways that we can get beside families in a meaningful way based on how we already interact with them.

So, we have the top blue one is for Family Service Professionals. We have, in the middle, one for Teachers and Child Care Providers. And then last but not least and many of you who are on the line today are Home Visitor colleagues that are specific to the work that you do within your program option in your day-to-day responsibility. So, you saw at the top of the webinar that we have -- This is the first of a four part series, so we'll actually be going through each of these in detail for you on those dates that we showed at the beginning and that we'll show again at the end. So, this is the whole suite, that's why I call it the sweet suite of the four documents that really work in conjunction with each other, that can be used specifically for you in your role and/or for, you know, your programs, and even, we have a state looking that the RBCs too, right, Cathy?

Cathy: Yes. Mmm-hmm.

Brandi: Well, let's define this here for you now, like what is -- We're getting down to the actual concrete business. What is a Relationship-Based Competency? Here's what we have. And you'll see more of these words as we go forward in some of the key terms that we're going to list up with you today. But think about the knowledge, skills, and individual practices, other characteristics, including attributes, behaviors, action, that are necessary to be effective in your family engagement work. And you guys know, like we do, that we use engagement very specifically, different from involvement, a higher level of interaction with the each other where families take the lead. The engagement for us is very specific word that is super-meaningful. I do want to mention this now because several of you have asked in chat.

If you look over on the left-hand side of your screen, there's a little pod in the middle that says, "files for download," what you're going to see first is just an overview of the 10 competencies. And we want you to make sure to have that as we go through them here in just a little bit. And then thank you, Nina, who has actually gone right to our webpage that lives on the ECLKC and has given you the link right to all of these good bits. So, we'll put that up again as we go along so that you have it close by. But you can also download like the two-page version so that you can see all 10 competencies at once off to your left in the file for download pod. And all you do is click "The RBC Overview Handout." And then you actually have to hit the "Download Files" button to make sure that you get that to your own technology, laptop, desktop, whatever you're using today, mobile device perhaps. But, Cathy, before we move from this, are there any other things that you would add to the actual definition here?

Cathy: I think you've been clear on the definition. One of the things that I wanted to say is that this overview of the Relationship-Based Competencies, we would love for you to use that along with the role-specific competencies, so that if many of you are waiting to hear about what are we going to say specifically for teachers, or for home visitors, or for family service workers, we always want you to take this overview that's here for download now and match it with the role-specific documents that we'll having for you as we move forward with these webinars. And so, it's really -- This overview, it's really an important document that you can share with anyone. And if any of you are feeling left out, like, you know, "There aren't role specific RBCs for me," the overview is really for you as well. So, I just wanted to say that little bit about how to use this overview.

Brandi: Yeah, that's a great reminder. And that really was born from -- And this is always one of my favorite parts because we're going to transition into some of the pieces about, you know, for instance, why the RBCs are important. And, you know, we've really been thinking a lot about how we do what we do within Head Start, and certainly, this document was written for Head Start and for childcare, everybody who works within that early care community. And it's become really important for many reasons, a couple of those that we could lift up are pieces that really help articulate how we do what we do together and allow us to even look personally at our own trajectory as a professional and not only for our day-to-day interactions but where we want to go long term, how that's informed our leadership, how leadership has used it to inform things like funding for instance in the five-year project period or even how states have been thinking about integrating this in a consistent way across, for instance, like subsidy workers, sort of organizational pieces. So, it's just incredible. But, Cathy, I know that you've had a long history with the RBCs, and I want to make sure that you add your insight on this part as well.

Cathy: Thank you, Brandi. Again, you and I both have a long history with the RBCs together. One of the things that we really felt that's important was that we needed to pull together those... Again, the understanding, the skills, the practices, and really bring them together so that individual practitioners have a guide for their practices as well as to provide supervisors of direct service staff some guidance about what staff might need for them through supervision and also the roles of leadership in thinking about the RBCs. So, you'll see that we felt that one of the really important pieces was to be able to describe those practices for direct staff but also for those of you in leadership positions. And again, this really defines the area of practice around family engagement. So, it gives you guidance to be able to do all the many things that Brandi just mentioned, from thinking about job descriptions to hiring, to performance reviews, to helping direct staff have a roadmap for thinking about, you know, what are the kinds of things that my job entail in the context of working with families and how might I do that work.

Brandi: That's great, and this very helpful, we're also being reminded that a couple of our colleagues, folks really use these too in sort of the parallel process, not only how they are with and beside families but each other, with community, which, Cathy, you pointed out earlier and with spenders, with stakeholders, I mean these things, you know, are powerful and they work with any interaction in which you are inclined to apply them. And one of our colleague Jacky was also reminding us, it's really a wonderful, pretty easy, almost like a lattice, if you will, for professional development so that you're able to sort of determine where you are, where you want to go, and we have a couple of assessments that we'll tell about that actually give you a frame to do just that. So, we just wanted to kind of give you a
couple of these things in the visual cue, even though we've already kind of mentioned that loud, who can use these, and it's really just the whole broad base of folks who live and dwell within.

The early childhood systems, of course that, I mean, we've even had folks get curious about these from different paradigms. So, it's been exciting to see how the work that started and began and really was born in Head Start has just grown and blossomed over the years. Now this is my favorite slide really because this is when most of you who said, "I have no idea what this is" will now say "Oh, yeah, I do what that is." You see, the cover, that's usually how I am anyway. What you see on the left-hand side has been the RBCs that we've had since about 2012 that Cathy and I were mentioning earlier. And what we have now, as I said, with the sweet suite is over on your right-hand side. And so, you'll see with the green strip on the bottom, that's the universal overview document. And thanks, Nina, for putting back in, the link, so everybody can go find that on the ECLKC. And then you have behind that one the three role-based documents that we'll be going into deeper in the future webinars in this series.

But with all that, we quickly wanted to check-in, because we've already been with each other for 30 minutes, on any question or reactions in the chat. And by the way, just so you know, we will the staying after, today, at least 15 minutes. If you've ever been with us, you know that we have a chat after the webinar, in case you have anything left lingering, then you're welcome to insert anything here now if something is just really on your mind that you want to put a pen in. If we don't get to it right away, we'll certainly create some space to do that at the end. So, that's just some foreshadowing in case something comes up for you. But, Cathy, this is, I know, my favorite part to hear from you because, I have to tell you guys, every time I hear Cathy speak about these and the 10 competencies confident, there were none, that's another one, now that are 10, I learned something new about either how to organize or the intentionality of how they go together or who might benefit from which ones. So, what we really want to do is showcase each one for you and think together about how everything fits.

And to do that, one of the things that I wanted to make sure that folks have really wrapped themselves around is the terminology because as all of these things fit together, you know, in my mind, it is like a formula that you see here on the screen. And I want you to keep these words in mind as we actually show you the specifics of these documents so that you'll have that fresh in your minds as you figure out how all of this might be meaningful or at least something that you can consider in your program or in your work. So, let's look at these quickly. We have what I've been calling tiers. Under each competency, there are these tiers that we call knowledge, skills, and practices. And the big thing I want you guys to see here is that those three things together, the Knowledge + Skills + Practices = Professional Practice. And you can see over on the right-hand side in the bubble how we really define that.

And it's, as I said, the combination of those three pieces that are... And that they evaluate, and Cathy gets excited about this, measurable or observable and describe what a person needs to know and how to do the work successfully. Those words in particular hold a lot of power and meaning. And, Cathy, I'm even thinking of some recent work we did with our colleagues from the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning and around practice-based coaching even. So, the word "observable" to me now pops out as oh, when teachers, and we have several education experts on the line today, are using these RBCs. Those practices can actually be transferable over into what you're already doing. For practice-based coaching and because, you know, being observable is the whole point of that too, so lots of opportunities here. Let me make sure that you keep in mind that key terminology as we go forward because you're going to need to know that almost all your secret decoder ring. When you really get into the heart of these documents. And, Cathy, without further ado, let's get you in here so that you can teach us how these things work and how they are organized.

Cathy: Sound good, Brandi. So, there are 10 major categories that make up the Relationship-Based Competencies or 10 areas of practice that I would focus. Those of you who really knew the prior version of the RBCs, there were nine and we've added one. And I want to tell you a little bit about each of them. Our notion is that if you're really doing what we call comprehensive family engagement, you're involved in all 10. But there was kind of a method to the way that they're organized and the way that we develop them, and here you see the first three. We did organize them with some particular thoughts in mind. And actually, the first three tend to be the three that we think are closest in to doing family engagement work. And that this organization, that everyone across an organization is going to think about positive goal-oriented relationships. Again, teachers may think about establishing those relationships with families through somewhat different vehicles or different ways than family service workers.

And then home visitors, those of you who are home visitors, have this unique role where you bring the family work and the child work together and you carry all of that forward in a home visit. But each of you really look at positive goal-directed relationships And this really means that you're engaging in mutually respectful, positive, and goal-oriented partnerships. And by goal-oriented, what we mean is that there is a purpose to your engaging in a relationship. Yes, it's critically important to greet people, to say hello, to welcome them, but your purpose, which is really to really support families, to help them progress and to support the learning and health and wellness of their children, that's your goal orientation. The second one really involved self-aware and culturally responsive relationships, so this is the positive relationship that we think about that it's really important with everyone, that involves respect, understanding, respecting, responding to cultures, language, values, and family structures.

And again, that one is that up there close to the top because it's something universal that we really think of as being so important for everyone. And the third, really thinking about family well-being and families as learners. The work that each of you do to support this particular competency really has to do with the reflections and planning for families around safety, health, education, wellbeing, and their life goals. Brandi, I'm going to stop there about the first three. Again, there's a reason why these are at the top and our thinking is that this is really where most folks can enter first, although some of you in your roles may feel like you can enter into thinking about competencies in some of the later competencies. So, I would urge you to think about where are the places that you can see yourselves and where can you enter first.

Brandi: Oh, Cathy, I love this. It's just the grounding or the anchoring in these first 3 of 10. And so many of you guys already mentioned this, I'm trying to scroll up quickly, one of you mentioned about our seven family engagement outcomes really early. And you'll notice that these first three are really reminiscent of those seven family engagement outcomes that live in the blue column of our framework on purpose. Some of you guys have already, you know, really got a lot of incredible systems around those seven family engagement outcomes in the blue column of the framework. And so, you'll notice, like those positive goal-oriented relationships that's the arrow from the framework. The culturally responsive piece, if you haven't seen our new framework, we did a webinar just last week, we have a whole second tier to our arrow now that includes all things equity, inclusion, culture, language, and responsiveness to all families, we have the honor to serve. So, I just want to point out here that Cathy's words can't be underscored anymore because we want you to see the synchronicity, not only with the framework but also with what you've already built in your program and/or within your own systems that these really the support. Because you guys are really worried, I want to make sure that you know, the PowerPoint is available for you to download in the left-hand side of your screen.

Thank you, Miss Nina, for putting that in there for us. We know you guys really like to have that, it's on the left-hand side and it's called RBC Overview Web, it's like six megabytes or some MB, whatever that is. And you just click it, and click "download file", and you'll have it of your very own. So, we know you get anxious about that, we do too, we want to make sure you have what you need. So, let's use that to transition to, remember I said here... Keep those words in my mind, remember what I said about knowledge, skills, and practices? So, what we have here, we popped out the second competency on self-aware and culturally responsive relationship that Cathy just overviewed for us out of the three. And you'll remember that after the knowledge, skills, and practice is equaled, this professional practice column. So, that's your secret decoder ring. But I also want to say to you, when you get into the actual documents and that link that we gave you earlier, here's how these selected examples fall out. The first bullet that you see here is the K, the knowledge.

So, when you look at this in our documents and you get into these selected examples, what now you will know is, "Oh, that first bullet is really the knowledge, that second one is the skill, and the third one is the practice." And remember the formula slide, that knowledge, skill, and practice equals the professional practice what you see in that second column. So, it's really just a great way to be able to use these to mobilize in specific ways in service of not only the competency of course but how we are with and beside our families and each other. Cathy, with that, let's look at four through six.

Cathy: Okay, here are four, five, and six, and you'll begin to see the pattern here. As Brandi said, you can connect these to the framework. But four really have to do with supporting parent-child relationships and families as lifelong educators. And then five really are family connections to peers and community. And six is family access to community resources. So, this is really a group of RBCs. The start with thinking about, and again, having that knowledge, skill, and those practices that support parents in their relationships with their children, with families as lifelong educators of their children, and then moving from there into making family connections with peers and communities, and again, as families make connections to peers and communities, they need some help with access to community resources. Again, as you can see, we've now gone from one to six. And these are all different facets of the family engagement work that are built out for you in the context of that knowledge, skills, and then the practices.

Brandi: Thank you so much, Miss Cathy. I -- Well, you guys will start to see how these really overlay with your work and your role as you get to really know how they're organized, and I really like this piece. We've had, for instance, a lot of thoughts about "Oh, gosh, where might family workers find their work really everywhere, of course, but like are there ones that family workers would feel more connected to in terms of, you know, what you were talking at the beginning of the webinar, what you really lean to as strategies or tips, tricks that you use beside families that you know that are effective. So, we've been real curious to see how you're going to resonate with these, where you might find yourselves sort of hovering in the RBCs in more ways, you know, or spaces than others. And what that looks like as it crosses about, you know, amongst your roles. So, similarly, we wanted to get again, like, you know, really bring this -- Bring it on home with this slide, with the knowledge, skills, and practices. And equal that to that second column of the professional practice, we just brought in one of the other example Cathy mentioned here, connections to peers and community. Again, pretty straight from the framework in that blue column on family outcomes, and then the same thing, that first bullet is really the knowledge, connect families with resources and events, the second one is the skill, encourages families to identify, develop, and use formal network. And then, of course, the practice, and this is more concrete, the practice of the parent-to-parent interactions. So, all of those three things added up culminate to that second column in the professional practice, and when you guys really get into this, that's going to be helpful for you as you unpack these documents and how they might be useful. All right, Miss Cathy. We've got few more here. Let's look at seven and eight.

Cathy: Okay, let's take a look at seven and eight. And I'll say it right now, one through eight really describe individual components of practice. So, we have two more, seven, which is leadership and advocacy. And this is the one that has been added, so this was not in the prior competencies. But this really has to do with having professionals work alongside partners to help build the strength as advocates for families and leaders. And this happens both in the program and in the community. And
again, as you're thinking about your individual roles, my guess is that you'll really think about, "Well, how would I go about doing that because again, if you're a family service worker, you may do that differently than a teacher or differently than a home visitor. So, there are many individual ways that you might do this, but everyone is really also supporting leadership and advocacy. And the final individual facet of family engagement really has to do with coordinated, integrated, and comprehensive services that each professional works with other professionals and agencies to support coordinated, integrated, and comprehensive services for families. And that's both in the organization, across the organization, and also in the system.

Brandi: Cathy, I love how these progress. Oh, Lisa, look at you. I think we have a star student, Cathy. Lisa, you caught us. This is the one that's brand new, we did have 9, now there are 10, and 7 was added. So, this is the fresh hotness, as we say, that was added just in this series. So, thank you for catching it and bringing it up because that's the one that would be brand new as we said. And what's great about this is you guys know, again, to the framework, we have the whole outcome on families as advocates and leaders, so it really not only lends itself to how we strive to walk beside families in terms of their own trajectory and progress, but it just really connects to our work in so many ways. Again, in the parallel process, of course, but certainly with what our families teach us, and hopefully, what we offer along the way as well. But, Cathy, I love what you remind us about here, these are progresses really. I mean, in the way that they sort of... Correct me in how I'm saying this, that it doesn't represent the vision but how they really start a bit more one-to-one and then really kind of blow up and out to be a bit more systemic in, you know, how we're thinking about what we do beside staff families. How would you say it, Cathy?

Cathy: I think you said it beautifully, Brandi, that's exactly what it is. It moves from really having, you know, some of the key individual practices that are really in kind of different areas or with a different focus. And then the last one that you saw, number 8, which really has to do with integrating the work that we do with everyone else who's also working with families is brings us into that systemic view and then if you take a look, when you go to 9 and 10, 9 really have to do with data-driven services and continuous improvement. So, it encourages families to share information to help improve services, and we really think about how do we reflect with families to do that, how to reflect with families around their own individual progress, and how they can do that in a data-driven way as well as how programs can do that work. And this may involve data involved that is about their children, that's about the families themselves and their interests and their goals in their work around families programs and around the larger organizations and communities in which they live. So, it really covers all of those dimensions. Then finally, number 10 is really about professional growth. And this is the competency that if you want a quick kind of view of the overall professional responsibilities around practice, take a look at this one because this really has to do with professionalism and practice, and active participation in opportunities for learning, for continuing to grow as a professional, and really think about professional development as it relates to family engagement.

Cathy: So, those are the 10.

Brandi: Okay, great. There's one specific, to me -- Lisa, I'm so glad to see you guys. And Winona, too. They have a really good question here that I think would be helpful for each of us, I want to make sure you get a chance as well as you listen. So, Lisa picked out that seven was the new addition on leadership and advocacy. So, I'll flip back a slide here. And Lisa is totally like, okay, tell us more about like the basis for the ordering, especially given 7 was added, why wasn't 7 just 10, like why did it go there and not at the very end.

Cathy: Good question. Very astute. Seven is, is, again, is the last of the competencies that really have a particular focus, you know, family well-being, parent-child relationships, and families as lifelong educators. So, each one of those really focus on a particular facet of family engagement as is leadership and advocacy to really build strengths in those particular areas, 8, 9, and 10, and particularly 9 and 10, as what Brandi says, are more systemic, so we didn't want to just tack 7 on at the end and say this is new, but we really wanted to order these in a way that you could look at them and you could go through a set of competencies that would tell you about the different facets of considering family engagement practice and then at the end be able to say, and these are the two that really sum it up, particularly the last one which really goes back to a professional's own development. How am I going to grow as a professional in my work? What are my ethical obligations? What are my obligations around confidentiality? What are my obligations about my own professional learning? What other kinds of accountabilities do I have? So, I hope that helps a little bit to understand. And we want you to see the order in the progress because our hope is that then you can take a look and figure out where it might be helpful to start to think about applying the profession-based competencies to your work because we know that, you know, everyone can't take these and say, "I'm going do all 10 of these right now tomorrow." I mean, that doesn't sound realistic to me. But you take a look at the ones where you really may be able to excel, look at what you are doing, look at those facets and then also look at the overall, more systemic, and I love that language, Brandi. The more systemic competencies and look at where there is, where you're making progress, and those of you who are supervisor and leadership, where you can support your staff in making progress, as well.

Brandi: We'll look in the chat to make sure that -- Diana and Tamisa comes back and says, "Okay, great, now that makes sense." And, you know, this is some of the secret behind the things that are so helpful when you guys are, you know, really putting these to use out on the ground. So, as you're thinking about how to organize, I love Cathy's nod to what we've learned about these is that you really -- And I wanted to go back in time to the framework and specifically I'd recall is because we know that you are usually driving toward one because there's so much here to think about and so much, you know, to think sustain on in terms of celebration and things that you're already doing in a great way, but things to consider in terms of, you know, a professional development trajectory. So, we've been encouraging folks to choose like one of the competencies, and so they're looking back at like their five-year project period, you know, for Head Start and you're looking at, you know, what kinds of overarching program goals have been written and what the PD needs are. So, it's just really helping to bring, you know, all those people together in a synchronous way. And if you know that little trick that Cathy just taught us, it's helpful. Okay, well. I know that we only have about 10 minutes left and we do want to hear a little bit from you guys about how you think.

And remember, the example, I'm driving you over to that third column, we want to hear a little bit from you guys about how you think these might be relevant to your work. Now we've heard from a few of you, as you've been kind of typing in, in terms of reflections from before, and when we asked about what do you think, what questions do you have, that we specifically look back to the second competency around self-aware and culturally responsive relationship, and we're asking you to look over at that third column for the examples. And remember, knowledge, skills, and practices, we wanted to see what resonates with you, what kind of examples might you associate with how these could be relevant for you. So, I want to give you a couple of seconds to type and then we'll come back and check in. All right, let's see here. Families don't think of going with something really small and we can help them understand and realize there are more things. Yeah, and all of this specifically builds and can be integrated. One of the things that I love about the RBCs is that what the authors did was really going into other pieces of work from other paradigms like the NASW Code of Ethics like in the USC, the guidance and things that you guys are already using in your work that crosses over, so it can be recognized and it can be integrated in that way. I'm seeing a few questions fly by.

We have a team who's actually watching the questions. And don't forget that we are going to be sticking around at least 15 minutes after the webinar ends, and if you're inclined and have the space in your schedule to do that, we'd love to have you. So, if we don't get to your exact question in the time we have left, we will do our best as we stay after the top of the hour. Okay, so I'm seeing now, development of the family partnership agreement, you have resources certainly provided in the family's primary home language. Oh, I'm glad, Carrie hasn't heard of these things before but possibly can be helpful, so that's exciting to hear. And we have a couple of specific questions that we're going to be working on. So, Cathy, let me pause and see if you have seen any fly by that you want to touch on as we continue to collect these.

Cathy: Oh, there are a number of things here. I'm really pleased that folks are really, that teachers are thinking about how they may be able to use them, family service professionals, home visitors because that really was the idea, there may be different ways in which you connect with families and ways in which your roles really give you the opportunities to do special work with families. But you're all really thinking about how to use them to use them for PD planning, to use them, to even consider childcare resource and referral programs, and I'm glad that it looks like so many really things that they relate to those programs, we really hope so. One of the things that I wanted to point out is that the role-specific competencies use these 10 major categories, and underneath each category, there is pretty detailed descriptions of knowledge, skills, and practices of each category for the individuals in that role, and then there's a column next to that for their supervisors.

So, as you're thinking about how each one of these 10 competencies might be helpful, just keep in mind that as you look at the role-specific competency resources, they elaborate further on everything we've talked about here, they're not totally different. I also want to mention that if you do go on to ECLKC, you will find the role-specific competencies for professionals who work with children in groups, and that really includes folks and teachers in center-based care but also family childcare providers. So, those two groups of people, the Relationship-Based Competencies for home visitors are close to being hot off the press, and we did some additional work also to share those with certain leaders in the home visiting field, took us a little bit longer to get those out there. But I hope that they should be out there very, very soon. So, if you're home visitors, if you're not finding your role-specific competencies resource on ECLKC now, it will be there very soon. Brandi?

Brandi: Cathy, that's a great segue, too, because in addition to everything that you guys have shared and the richness of the general chat, there were some other uses, Cathy, that I wanted to just put up here. I think we've touched a few of these but I know we didn't get to the QRIS bit. What other ones would you highlight on this slide, Cathy?

Cathy: Yeah, and again, I think there are a number of ways. First and foremost, we hope that those of you who are in direct practice can use these to guide your practice and also to have conversations about your own learning, your own progress, the kinds of things that you are doing and to celebrate those and use them as ways of learning and use them with your supervisors. I think we've talked about this. As Brandi mentioned, there also is a category for leadership practices under each of the competencies in each of the role-based, relationship-Based Competency documents. So, these really target what program leadership may really want to be involved in and it sometimes goes beyond program leadership, it may also involve guidance for states or regions or childcare networks and setting standards of practice. We hope that they'll provide guidance for developing family engagement information for state, for state administrators, for folks who are involved in collab or collaborating roles, and we hope that they will also be thought of as being able to inform QRIS standards. I think, Brandi, you mentioned measures of progress for five-year goals and you may want to say more about that as well because I think that's another really important use.

Brandi: Well, a couple of folks have alluded to this too in the chat about how, you know, if an individual -- Well, I'm going to use this actually to click forward on the slide so that you guys can see a little bit of what we're thinking about in terms of resources. I wanted to use that as a transition because the resources in terms of how folks are using these toward their five-year project period plans, we have not only the four book roles that we showed you, but we have assessments for each of these roles. So, if you're a teacher and you want to look at these and how you sort of integrate the knowledge, skills, and practices into your work, we have an assessment for you to look at and sort of rate where you think you are on one of these competencies and one for your supervisor or your coach. So, this is like a really exciting thing that we'll get into as we lead ourselves into the rest of the web series. And, Cathy, there's much greater profiles, and I'm going to ask you to share with all of our friends on the line when the remaining three of this four part series opportunities will be.

Cathy: As Brandi said in the beginning, on September 20, we'll be talking about RBCs for teachers and childcare providers, and we will really drill down on those role specific competencies and also talk about what I think are the really great assessment documents that go with those. Then on October 11, we'll be talking about RBCs for family service professionals. And last but not least, we'll be talking about RBCs for home visitors on the 1st of November, and we really hope that all of you will join us, again, to hear about the role-specific competencies.

Brandi: Well, Cathy, were there any questions that came up in the span here that we need to go back to. I'm going to scroll back up a little bit because I know we missed a couple that we didn't get to touch. Let's see, well, you guys, if you're still here and there's a question that you posed that you still have as we're scrolling to look back, feel free to put it back in chat so that way it'll be on the top here and we can all see it together. We're really grateful for you guys being here today. We know how busy your schedules are, have mercy, especially this time of year. So, we're grateful to have any moments of your time together and we're especially excited to see many of you saying that you think these could be helpful in your work, that's why we spring out of bed every day. Let's see here, Cathy, I think this is a good one to ask. And I want to kind of put it out here transparently, could we have it come up before the question about transitions. And I believe it was -- I want to scroll up here. Linda asked about the family engagement and transitions from the framework because you know I kept harkening back on that blue column. So, she was wondering like, "Looks like all the other outcomes are in there, talk to us about transition, and I know we had this conversation before."

Cathy: And we have. And when you take a look at the role-specific competencies, you will find transitions really covered across a number of those competencies. So, instead of pulling it out as a separate competency, it really seemed more important to embed it beginning with, you know, goal-specific relationships but also, for example, in parent-child relationships, and in families as their, you know, children's lifelong educators that we talk about transitions there and we also talk about transitions in family well-being because we really were thinking about the family's transition as their child moves across programs, the transition into parenthood, the transition into a program with an infant, those of you who are doing home visiting, the transition to having a home visitor come into your home and then possibly going into a center-based program after having home visiting. So, again, we are clearly also thinking about, and there are some very specific preferences in terms of both knowledge, skills, and practice around transitions into kindergarten. But we did include them across a number of the competencies instead of putting them into a separate competency. So, that was our rationale.

Brandi: This has became very important for our migrant and seasonal colleagues because this is one, and many of you have done this, you took the core of those seven family engagement outcomes and you absolutely took what we thought we were saying around the operational definitions of those, but you made them real for where you are in your communities and for the families that you walk beside, and specifically, we have a lot of conversations around transitions with our migrant and seasonal communities. And that was a really pointed and important question that we heard from our colleagues there really early on as we were taken these around to various stakeholders and contributors to the field and then ultimately, our work and yours. So, Linda, if you're still here, I'm really grateful for the question and thank you for noticing. That's exciting. And I know Amanda asked about the... Oh, hey, Linda, you are still here. Good to see you. Thank you for that. The assessments, you guys are asking about those that if you follow the link that Nina has given you, she actually just put it in the chat, we want to make sure you see those.

But one thing that I want to say to you guys is they are extremely rich and they have so much detail inside and they ask each of the roles to indicate, like almost on a Likert-type scale, their comfort on those knowledge, skills, and practices, all of those tiers under all of those competencies. But what we learned over time is that folks should think about one, like remember how I said a little earlier, think about one of the competencies and how it connects to your overall work and the outcomes maybe in the blue columns because a lot of you have used those as leverage points. And then, even further into one of those tiers, the knowledge, skills, or practices, so that way, it doesn't feel so overwhelming. And even at that level of specificity, we've had managers say, "Oh, wow," you know, I had all of my staff do, you know, an assessment on the cultural competency and we went right to the practices and it informed where we were going for our own professional development for the course of the next year, like it totally helped plot and plan what we put in our own TA plan for the program or... And so there are different ways that folks have come to this, but that's a big lesson that we've learned, even though these are brand new, and it's a big lesson that we've learned to share with you.

Cathy: A couple of other questions, Brandi, just to let everyone know that every role-based Relationship-Based Competency is paired with a new assessment. So, someone wanted to know -- One of the questions was, you know, have the family service assessments been updated. And yes, they have. And they match the new versions of these role-specific relationships. And when the home visiting resource comes out, it will also be matched with the self-assessment and there would be a self-assessment for home visitors and also a self-assessment for supervisors of home visitors. And that kind of three resource package is what each of the role-specific RBCs look like. Well, we have access to it on the ECLKC. I'm wondering if there are any other questions that folks have or any other things that we missed. I want to make sure that we're looking. Someone asked about the transitions document, there isn't a separate relationship-based competency that addresses transitions. Transitions are addressed throughout each of the role-based RBCs. So, I'd urge you to take a look at the role-based RBCs documents that are out there on ECLKC because I think you'll find some of the details that you're looking for. And again, join us on September 20 when we really dig even more deeply into those role-based RBCs.

Brandi: Well, Cathy, I appreciate that foreshadowing because we do have a lot more detail to share in each of those. And I think you guys are going to really appreciate the specificity that you'll find in the detailed documents. So, go check them out and then come back and see us for the rest of the series.

Cathy: Right, someone did ask if we suggested that folks participating in the next three webinars are just the parts that pertain to you. Yeah, what do you think, Brandi? I think that, first and foremost, I would love to have you join us. Again, if you're a teacher, really come to the teacher and childcare provider session. If you're a family service worker, come to those, but one of the things that we have done is that we've made sure that there's lots of parallel work across all three of the role-based RBCs. So, if you're really interested in not only how would I do this but how would my colleagues do it and how are we going to put it together, then I would certainly invite you if you were doing that direct work on the ground to come to all three. Those of you in a leadership position who really are supervising teachers, family service workers, and/or home visitors or have some responsibility as management staff to oversee the work of folks in any of those groups, we'd also urge you to, again, first, come to the webinar where you have the most targeted interest, but we're really hoping that folks will connect. They may be looking at what their practices are in their role but how that really fits with practices of other people in different roles in the organization.

And it looks like Caitlin is really saying, she's the site supervisors, so she's going to take all the webinars. And thank you for being willing to commit all that time. We're hoping that those of you in supervisory roles really can help us and let us know if and where and when you see the meshing. We're hoping that because we've really written these competencies so that they are parallel and similar, that those of you in leadership roles can look across them and really see, oh, you know, home visitors and teachers are doing the same things and so are family service workers, so then you could even say, so we might do one professional development offering that targets this particular area of work in family engagement and maybe it needs to be multidisciplinary. So, these are some of the ways that you can think about the RBCs and how they might help direct your continuous program improvement and your professional development.

Brandi: All right, we see a couple of questions here coming in. And it looks like we're winding down. I just want you to think more about the trainer certification that you're thinking of, what we know that folks do is take and collect these certificates and put them into their PD plan to add up for the hours that they are required to have for, you know, like the licensing or Head Start standards sometimes, that's usually why we make sure you guys have them. I know that we have to explore that. I don't think we've ever had that question. We should look into that. Yeah, let us do a little research, extend the trainer... Extend the trainer day. We'll see what we can find out for you. All right, gosh, thank you, guys, so much for spending your afternoon with us. We're very happy to be with you. Thank you all so much for being with us today. And, Cathy, thank you always. Thank you so much.

Cathy: Oh, you too, Brandi. Thank you all for joining us. It's really wonderful to be able to talk to all of you and I look forward to talking to you very soon when we come back and talk about the other RBCs.

Additional Resources for Relationship-Based Competencies to Support Family Engagement for All Early Childhood Professionals: An Overview

In this first webinar, learn how the relationship-based competencies (RBCs) can guide family engagement practices across a range of professional roles and settings. Find out what updates have been made to these competencies and how they can help you in your work. Also, discover how to use the RBCs for professional development.